APAP EVENTS : Your Marketing and Media Specialists
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The Businesses you back shape how your Town evolves…
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The Businesses you back shape how your Town evolves…
7 Ways to Benefit from the Beef Australia Visitor Influx
200,000 are expected to go through the entrance gates. Accommodation providers are fully booked out. Restaurants already have bookings.
Is your business going to be prepared for Beef Australia 2024?
1.
How can your business attract Beef Australia visitors, particularly if you are not having a display at the Showgrounds?
If you haven’t already asked yourself this question, do so now. Write down what you are prepared to do, outside the ordinary, to attract them. Could be simple things, like opening earlier or closing later.Do a cost benefit analysis of these ideas. Think not just short-term results, but the LTV (long-term value) of the ongoing, business possibly gained from new customers.And if you do have a display at the Showgrounds, good on you, but you still need an action plan (that includes the cost/benefit analysis, with written objectives, including, at the very least, collect names and contact details to add to your customer database). Plus, can you make your display distinctive? Something that visitors may share with other visitors about your display, be it because it was fun, the technology used, presentation, the personalities present. Warning; be conscious of the image you project, when being distinctive (and even when you are not trying to be distinctive, perception is everything). Is it line with your brand strategy?
2.
What should I do now?
Brand awareness, if they don’t know you, they are unlikely to go looking, or asking, for you. Especially if your business is not beside where they are staying, on route to (and from) the showgrounds, or what they walk past at the showgrounds.
Need to build brand awareness to the rural market quick! Check your database, how many people have you got listed outside post codes 4700, 4701, 4703, 4710 & 4711? Reacquaint yourself with them. Have them feel special, on reading the email. Advertise on satellite TV, in the Queensland Country Life and/or Beef Central, book outdoor advertising, Facebook, KIX FM, do a BVOD campaign targeting specific post codes, or a programmatic campaign and get more specific.
What are you going to advertise though?
- A factory/organisation tour
- VIP night
- Special offer(s)
- Specialist (relevant) service(s)
- Different opening times, opening earlier, staying later
- Competition
- A special open house
- Lifestyle change
3.
Is digital advertising the best way to reach Beef Australia visitors?
Many visitors will be online, checking what to do at Beef Australia and in and around Rockhampton. So it makes sense to include digital as part of your marketing campaign. And it doesn’t involve the outlay of thousands of dollars. A programmatic campaign can utilise a number of media options, like Google display, Facebook, BVOD, to target the audience desired, from around $1500. The more ways and places you cast your net the more fish you will catch. Then while they are here, there are great out of home advertising opportunities on the entrance to town, in the shopping centre’s, plus radio while they are driving around. Even giving taxi and Uber drivers vouchers to give to their passengers, during that week. And of course, there is the program of events, being handed to all going through the gates!
4.
Should I collaborate with other businesses to improve by opportunities and share the market?
YES. You can do so much more as a group, which can make you stand out more, than as an individual. Be it advertising on satellite TV in the lead up to Beef Australia, as 9 local businesses did in 3 commercials, as part of a Brand Building strategy (3 businesses per commercial) for past Beef Australia’s.
Pooling together to create a bigger prize for a competition. Or to pay for a bus to commute visitors to your businesses.
5.
What prize would stand out in a competition?
The bigger the better, is the usual response. But then there are those ‘money can’t buy experience’ prizes, like going to Vegas on a corporate jet to watch the NRL games from a corporate box. But, what about a fishing charter in the Fitzroy, catch a barra. Distinctively Rockhampton. A prize with arguably wide appeal to Beef Australia visitors. And easier to organise than getting a travel visa for an NRL player.
Be creative, think not just what a Beef Australia visitor might like to win, but your typical customer would want to win.
6.
See what the fuss is about?
If you haven’t been to a Beef Australia, go to it. Take a taxi or Uber, there are even free shuttle buses, (no parking worries) ask the driver/passengers about it. Observe what businesses appear to get the most patronage, when you get there. What competitors had displays? What useful information did you pick up in your conversations, with visitors, display exhibitors?
7.
And after it is over, and the visitors have left!
Did you collect names and email addresses? Did you get asked for products or services you don’t normally provide? Is it viable to provide them? What did taxi and Uber drivers get asked the most? What did you learn to better prepare for Beef Australia 2027? Review and record. Then decide, what, and when, you going to send to those new names you collected? It need only be a thank you. But if you add a voucher towards their next purchase, with a call to action, to use it today, you will get alot more response!
You can, of course, just believe that only the accommodation providers and restaurants are the only local winners, and do nothing. Your pro-active competitors will thank you for it.
Prime Advertising Opportunities to Consider
(this is not an exclusive list)
- The digital sign on Gladstone Road (hit all western traffic coming in)
- The new digital sign opposite Kershaw Gardens (big and hard to miss)
- CQ Today & Qld Country Life – Beef Australia feature & program
- 4RO & KIX FM – outside broadcasts on-site at the showgrounds
- Programmatic digital campaign – highly targeted, multi-media
- Stockland Rockhampton – in-centre digital advertising
- Satellite TV advertising – wide, multi-state rural coverage
All media will have opportunities to build your brand awareness in the lead up to and during Beef Australia. I can help you determine what works for you, budget wise and creatively. Don’t leave this till the week before Beef Australia opens. Remember the 6 P’s. Proper planning and preparation prevents poor performance. Yes, this is often said with a 7th P.